It looks for a dangerous condition called pre-eclampsia, which can develop in pregnancy.
NHS to offer mums-to-be new blood test for pre-eclampsia
Reply
Category Archives: Mind Building
What Is Meditation? Here’s What You Need to Know—and How to Get Started
You might not have even heard of meditation a few years ago, but all of a sudden, it seems like everyone and their dog is doing it. It's become a serious buzzword in the world of wellness, and for good reason. Meditation has been shown to reduce stress, improve sleep, curb anxiety, and more. Uh, sign us up.
Some people get intimidated by the word "meditation." They think, You want me to sit in total silence? For how long? I don't have time for that. We get it, time is our most valuable resource. But what if we told you that if you commit just 2% of your day to meditation, the other 98% could possibly be more productive and enjoyable?
Emily Fletcher, founder of Ziva Meditation in New York City and author of Stress Less, Accomplish More: Meditation for Extraordinary Performance, lives by that motto, and she has a point. It really only takes is a few minutes of meditation each day to start seeing some serious benefits. So what is meditation, anyway? And how can you get started? Fletcher answers all of our questions below:
RELATED: The Beginner's Guide to Meditation
What is meditation?
Put simply, meditation is a tool for stress relief, Fletcher says, adding that by relieving stress, you're setting yourself up to be able to perform at the top of your game. "I believe we meditate to get good at life, not to get good at meditation," she says. Many people have the misconception that meditation is about focusing on the present, but Fletcher actually considers that to be mindfulness (which we'll get into later). Meditation, on the other hand, is about getting rid of all of the stress the body has stored from the past.
Fletcher says when done properly, meditation can actually give your body rest that's deeper than sleep. "When you give your body the rest that it needs, it knows how to heal itself." She says to think of your brain like a computer, and imagine that every stressful event in your life has left an open window on your Internet browser. "When you give your body deep healing rest, it closes down those open windows so that you can operate as nature intended," she explains.
RELATED: The Best Online Meditation Videos Under 10 Minutes
What is mindfulness?
A lot of people use the terms mindfulness and meditation interchangeably, but they're actually very different, Fletcher says. "I would define mindfulness as the art of bringing your awareness into the present moment," she explains. It's a combination of techniques, such as breath work and visualization, that help you to relieve stress in the now. A main difference between the two is that mindfulness asks you to focus on the present, while meditation asks you to let your mind drift into a fourth state of consciousness that's different than waking, sleeping, or dreaming.
What are the benefits?
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University analyzed nearly 19,000 studies on meditation and concluded that there's plenty of evidence that the practice can help ease psychological stresses like anxiety, depression, and even pain. In addition, Fletcher says improved sleep, productivity, and mood are some of the most common benefits she's seen among her students. She tells us she's also had students who claim to have experienced other perks, such as a boost in libido.
RELATED: 4 Meditation Tips That Actually Work, According to Someone Who Struggles With Chronic Anxiety
How can I get started?
It can be intimidating to add something new to your daily routine, which is why the key to actually meditating every day is finding a technique that's right for you. There are countless apps, online courses, and books that can get you started, but before you commit to one, really think about whether it's going to fit into your schedule. For example, maybe you don't have time to read a book on meditation when you get home from work, but you do have 10 minutes to spend on an app in the morning before you start your day. Figure out what's going to work and stick with it. Once you do, Fletcher says you'll quickly realize you don't have time not to meditate.
RELATED: 10 Unexpected Ways to Meditate Every Day
Ashley Graham Opens Up About Why She’s Not Afraid to Show Her Stretch Marks on Social Media
On Sunday, model and body positivity icon Ashley Graham, 31, spoke about how she battles the exclusivity of the fashion and beauty world at an event hosted by the New York Times called Reshaping Beauty, which Health attended.
Graham talked about how people often told her she needed to lose weight when she was a younger model. The constant criticism was intensified by the fact that she felt lost trying to navigate the modeling world of New York City, where she'd moved from Nebraska at the age of 17. The stakes felt extra high for Graham because her parents had told her that she had one year to "make it" as a model in New York. If she didn't make a name for herself within that year, she'd have to return to Nebraska and go to college, they said. "I did not want to go to college," she told the audience.
She felt intense pressure after first moving to New York. "I was trying to make business decisions not knowing anything, walking into this wild world of fashion where they're telling me I'm too big. They're telling me to not talk. They're telling me that I'm just a clothes hanger and to just keep your mouth shut. That's the epitome of everything I'm not," Graham said. "I came from a family who was like, 'Be proud of who you are. Be loud and have an opinion, but do it with kindness.' So everywhere I went I said what I wanted to say but with a smile on my face, and, sure enough, it ended up working out really well for me."
RELATED: This Model's Viral Post Calls Out a Major Misconception of Being Curvy
Joanna Nikas, New York Times fashion and style editor, asked Graham about her experience being the first curvy model on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 2016. She mentioned that Graham said then that she hoped people would stop using the word "plus-size." Graham responded by saying that, while she personally doesn't love the descriptor, many women find their identity in it, so we shouldn't discard it completely.
"The word 'plus-size'—everybody has their own viewpoint on it," Graham said. "People want to be called it because they feel like it's their community. There's some people who don't want to be called it because they feel like it's divisive. I feel like it's divisive and a bit archaic, but we can't discredit the women who actually want to be called 'plus-size.' [W]e're not describing our friends based off the number inside their pants. So why do we have to do it for big girls? And we don't do it to men."
Graham credited one specific behavior as helping her better her relationship with her body. She recites this string of positive sentences to herself every day: "I am bold. I am brilliant. I am beautiful. I am worthy of all. I love you." She said she came up with this affirmation when she was 18 and was constantly being told to lose weight.
Reciting this mantra wasn't easy at first, but over the years she's learned to say it wholeheartedly. "This really just started shifting my brain because I know words have power," Graham said. "If you're telling yourself you're dumb, if you're telling yourself you're ugly, if you're telling yourself you're not worthy enough to have anything that you want, then that's going to be your future. So I had to change my words."
Even though she's skyrocketed in popularity since that 2016 Sports Illustrated cover, people still try to "fix" her body by editing pictures of her. "This is the kind of conversation I'm still struggling to have on set: 'You see those red stretch marks on the inside of my thigh? Leave those. Those are new and those are real, and we need to talk about those.' People will take them out, but I'm not afraid to talk about it. I'm not afraid to show it on social media."
RELATED: These 13 Women Prove Every Body Is a Bikini Body
Crop yield in maize influenced by unexpected gene ‘moonlighting’
Maize is a staple crop that came from humble beginnings. If you look at its wild ancestor, teosinte, the plant looks nearly unrecognizable. Human selection has persuaded the maize plant to grow in a way that produces higher yields and can be more efficiently harvested. But scientists and farmers are looking for ways, in the face of climate change, population growth, and other factors, to even further optimize maize yields.
Now, researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have identified a relationship between crop yield in the maize plant and specific genetic activity associated with one of the plant’s metabolic pathways. The discovery has implications for plant breeding, potentially opening the door for increasingly resilient, higher-yield maize plants.
CSHL Professor David Jackson and his team have connected the RAMOSA3 gene to branching, which can affect its yield. When a maize plant has too many branches, it will expend more energy towards making those branches, and less towards making seeds. More branches often means lower or less efficient yields.
Ears, the part of maize that we eat, are normally not branched at all — they just form one straight cob. But maize mutants that don’t have the RAMOSA3 gene can end up with gnarly-looking branched ears.
Jackson and his team initially hypothesized that the enzyme that RAMOSA3 encodes, called TPP, and a sugar phosphate called T6P which TPP acts on, are likely responsible for the ear-branching. Although the precise function of T6P remains “largely elusive,” the scientists believe that it has signaling properties.
Then, in a surprising twist, they found that a related gene, TPP4, also helps to control branching, but that gene’s effect was unrelated to its enzymatic activity. They wondered if the same might be true for RAMOSA3 and its own enzymatic activity. To follow up on this, they blocked only the enzyme activity associated with RAMOSA3, and not the gene itself, and got normal-looking ears of maize. This indicates that although RAMOSA3 controls the activity of the enzyme, it seems the enzyme activity is not responsible for controlling branching. Thus, the gene may be “moonlighting” with a hidden activity, explains Jackson. The question of what that moonlighting may entail is a launching-off point for future research.
The team’s findings were published in Nature Plants. Their work could lead to better crop yields and more efficient harvesting for the maize plant, as well as for other crops, like rice and quinoa.
Story Source:
Materials provided by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Farming for natural profits in China
A new strategy being rolled out in China relies on the idea that farmers can harvest much more than crops. The idea is that well-managed, diverse agricultural lands can provide flood control, water purification and climate stabilization, among other valuable services.
A recent case-study by researchers at Stanford, McGill University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences provide a promising demonstration of this approach — farmers who took environmental concerns into account doubled their incomes and reduced reliance on a single harvest while also gaining environmental benefits from the land. The group said the approach could help farmers worldwide protect both the environment and their livelihoods.
“Twentieth century monoculture farms greatly increased agricultural production, but at a huge price,” said Gretchen Daily, cofounder and faculty director of the Stanford Natural Capital Project.
“Conventional thinking says that monoculture farming is the only way to feed the world, but today there is a lot of rethinking, as billions of people are exposed to heightened flood risk, water pollution, climate risk and other serious vulnerabilities.” Daily was senior author on a paper describing the results, published April 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
An island test-case
Working with government authorities, the researchers looked at how their proposed approach, called the “Ecological Development Strategy” could work in Hainan Island, a rural, tropical region where expanding rubber plantations have driven extensive loss of natural forest and its vital benefits, such as soil retention and flood mitigation. Although the economy grew due to the plantations, intensive monocropping practices increased sediment runoff and channeled agricultural chemicals into surface waters. Forest recreation and tourism disappeared. Flooding was exacerbated by the area’s loss of trees.
The researchers looked at land use and land cover changes in Hainan Island over a 19-year period of steady rubber plantation growth. Pairing that information with survey data from households, the team used the Natural Capital Project’s InVEST modeling software to understand how changes in land use management could have garnered different results in natural forest or economic prosperity. Alongside the historical land data of almost two decades, the models helped researchers understand what could have happened if the land had never been developed for rubber plantations or if the plantations had been managed differently.
In particular, the researchers looked at one key land management change: a technique called intercropping that involves cultivating other valuable plants in the understory of a main crop. They found that rubber farmers who did this maintained the same production levels as monoculture plantations while significantly increasing soil retention, flood mitigation and nutrient retention. Perhaps most strikingly, farmers who took this approach doubled their incomes due to revenue from the additional crops. By diversifying their land, farmers also insured themselves against the risk of a single-crop’s harvest failing or losing market value; key vulnerabilities of the monoculture system.
Broader applications
Central to the Chinese Ecological Development Strategy is a focus on targeted investments in nature. Identifying places like Hainan where policy and management decisions can support both the economy and environment is crucial to achieve the widespread impacts that China is looking for. According to the researchers, this study illustrates how regions can leverage natural resources to support economic growth without sacrificing ecosystem health or human well-being.
The challenges that Hainan rubber plantation farmers face in terms of relying on single crops are magnified at a global scale, where monocultures, such as soy, beef and palm oil, drive the vast majority of the global food market. Global climate insecurity, water contamination and species mass extinction are the result. The study’s authors emphasize that the science and practices exist to help drive a shift away from monoculture systems worldwide, and economic incentives await those who do.
“There doesn’t necessarily need to be a trade-off,” Daily said. “You can have high value, high yielding production that secures farmers’ livelihoods and supports the vital functioning of the natural ecosystem.”
Story Source:
Materials provided by Stanford University. Original written by Sarah Cafasso. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Building blocks of DNA and RNA could have appeared together before life began on Earth
Scientists for the first time have found strong evidence that RNA and DNA could have arisen from the same set of precursor molecules even before life evolved on Earth about four billion years ago.
The discovery, published April 1 in Nature Chemistry, suggests that the first living things on Earth may have used both RNA and DNA, as all cell-based life forms do now. In contrast, the prevailing scientific view — the “RNA World” hypothesis — is that early life forms were based purely on RNA, and only later evolved to make and use DNA.
“These new findings suggest that it may not be reasonable for chemists to be so heavily guided by the RNA World hypothesis in investigating the origins of life on Earth,” says co-principal investigator Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy, PhD, associate professor of chemistry at Scripps Research.
Krishnamurthy and his lab worked on the study with the lab of John Sutherland, DPhil, of the UK Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge, as part of the New York-based Simons Foundation’s Collaboration on the Origins of Life.
RNA (ribonucleic acid) and DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) are chemically very similar, but chemists have never been able to show how the one could have been converted to the other on the early Earth, except with the help of enzymes produced by early organisms. Due in part to this lack of a demonstrated pre-life or “pre-biotic” chemical path connecting RNA to DNA, researchers in this field have been inclined to think that the simpler, more versatile one, RNA, was the basis for the first life forms — or at least for an early stage of life prior to the emergence of DNA. RNA is able to store genetic information as DNA can, is able to catalyze biochemical reactions as protein enzymes can, and otherwise probably could have performed the basic biological tasks that would have been necessary in the first life forms.
Although origin-of-life researchers in recent decades have largely come to embrace the RNA World hypothesis, Sutherland, Krishnamurthy, Harvard’s Jack Szostak and others have accumulated evidence that RNA and DNA may have arisen more or less all at once in the first life forms.
In a study published in 2017 for example, Krishnamurthy and colleagues at Scripps Research identified a compound that plausibly was present on the pre-biotic Earth and could have performed the crucial task of linking RNA building blocks into larger, chain-like RNA strands — and could have done the same for the building blocks of DNA and proteins.
In the new study, the scientists combined insights from that investigation with recent findings from Sutherland and his lab on a compound called thiouridine. The latter was likely present on Earth before life arose, and could have been a chemical precursor of the nucleoside building blocks of early RNAs. The team showed that in a few chemical-reaction steps, which plausibly could have occurred in a pre-biotic world, they could convert this precursor of an RNA building-block into a DNA building block — deoxyadenosine, which forms the letter “A” in the modern, four-letter DNA code. Alternatively they could convert thiouridine into deoxyribose, which is very closely related to deoxyadenosine and may also have been a precursor of early DNA building blocks.
The finding should make it easier for scientists to accept the possibility that DNA and RNA arose together and were included in the first life forms. Some researchers including Sutherland have suggested that RNA and DNA might even have been mixed together to make the first genes. No such organism is known to occur naturally now, but a recent paper by Scripps Research’s Peter Schultz, PhD and colleagues described an engineered bacterium that can survive with genes made of an RNA/DNA mix.
Krishnamurthy suspects that, however life arose, RNA and DNA with their respective strengths and shortcomings would swiftly have sorted themselves into the rather strict division of labor seen in all cells today: DNA for the stable long-term storage of genetic information, and RNA for its own special set of tasks including the short-term storage and transport of genetic information and the making of proteins.
“There is the beginning of a realization in the field that RNA and DNA could have been mixed together initially but later separated according to the things they do best,” Krishnamurthy says.
Health24.com | How brain stimulation may soothe severe depression
For those who suffer debilitating depression, stimulating the brain can bring desperately needed relief, new research shows.
The study findings suggest that this type of therapy should be considered as an alternative or additional treatment for the toughest cases of the mood disorder.
Non-surgical brain stimulation
Depression is typically treated with drugs and counselling, but these methods don’t work for every patient and some suffer unpleasant side effects from drugs, the study authors noted.
Enter non-surgical brain stimulation techniques, which use electrical currents or magnetic fields to alter brain activity. Medical guidelines support the use of these techniques, the researchers said, but they tend to be used too little and too late, and research into their effectiveness has been limited.
In the latest study published in the BMJ, the investigators analysed the results of 113 clinical trials involving over 6 700 patients, average age 48, who had major depression or bipolar depression, and received either brain stimulation or sham therapy.
The treatments included electroconvulsive therapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), magnetic seizure therapy, and transcranial direct current stimulation.
All of the treatments were more effective than the sham therapy by all measures, according to lead researcher Julian Mutz, of the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London.
Well-tolerated by patients
Commenting on the report, Dr Bryan Bruno said, “Although this study does not look carefully at the long-term benefits of these treatments, it reminds us that these treatments should be considered more often and earlier by physicians to treat their patients with depression.” Bruno is a psychiatrist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, and was not involved with the new study.
“TMS, in particular, is not only effective, but also very safe and well-tolerated by patients,” Bruno added.
It’s not clear how brain stimulation helps treat depression, the study authors said in a journal news release. In the case of TMS, it’s believed to change activity in areas of the brain that are underactive or overactive in depression.
The study also found that patients who received brain stimulation were no more likely to halt treatment than those who received the sham therapy.
The findings “will inform clinicians, patients and health care providers on the relative merits of multiple non-surgical brain stimulation techniques,” Mutz and his colleagues concluded.
Image credit: iStock
Health24.com | #FreeToBleed: Zero-rating and free pads to start in South Africa
From the start of the new financial year today, sanitary pads will be exempted from Value Added Tax (VAT), as announced by Finance Minister Tito Mboweni last year. But community advocacy organisation amandla.mobi is worried that retailers could try to not pass on the zero-rating saving to consumers.
“We need to monitor in-store prices to make sure greedy businesses don’t purposely increase their prices,” according to the organisation. Economist and member of the VAT review panel Thabi Leoka, however, says consumers can hold manufacturers or shops who increase their prices accountable by reporting them to the South African Revenue Service (SARS).
Compulsory zero-rating
“This is the best place to go to inform the authorities that there is no adjustments to the price of because any tax related issues fall under SARS,” she explains. “Any member of the public can also go to the Competition Commission open a case against companies that are anti-competitive and don’t want to reduce prices, adds Leoka.
“The Finance Minister has endorsed it, so is basically compulsory to zero-rate the full products that we recommend,” said Leoka.
Mboweni made the announcement during his maiden Medium Term Budget Policy Statement in October‚ which outlines how government will spend money in the next three years. According to the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group, a large pack of pads cost about R40,16 last October – when Mboweni made his announcement. “If the prices stayed the same, then this same pack should cost R34,92 on the 1st of April,” amandla.mobi says.
Meanwhile, the Department of Women’s long awaited Sanitary Dignity Programme, which will provide free sanitary pads to menstruating learners in poorer schools (known as Quintile one to three schools), also kicks off at the beginning of April.
KwaZulu-Natal launches on big scale
According to government guidelines, these schools are the poorest of all public schools and learners don’t pay school fees and receive a meal at school. National Treasury approved a total of R157 million to ensure the immediate rollout in all provinces from April 2019 to March 2020, the department’s Minister Bathabile Dlamini said at the programme’s launch in February.
Meanwhile, amandla.mobi says it will keep a close on how provinces roll out the programme. “We want to ensure that the corruption we saw with the free pads programme in KwaZulu-Natal doesn’t happen elsewhere. ”In 2017, the province’s education department announced that R20 million had been budgeted to provide free sanitary pads to learners in about 3 000 poverty-stricken schools during that financial year – making KwaZulu-Natal the first province to launch on such a large scale.
However, the initiative was marred with allegations of mismanagement, reported News24, when the provincial South African Democratic Teachers’ Union accused depart of “commercialising the free sanitary pads initiative”. The union alleged the initial R20 million ring-fenced was bumped to R109 million which the department approved.
“It’s important that the [national] rollout is done properly and the pads actually reach the learners they’re intended for so that we can learn how the programme can be to other public facilities,” says amandla.mobi. The Department of Women estimated that each learner would need about two packets of 10 sanitary pads costing R24.00.
Register to be held
“The amount is like a drop in the ocean given the number of girls in school in these quintiles. Nevertheless, Treasury is appreciated for the start,” the department’s Chief Directorate of Social Empowerment and Participation Sipiwo Matshoba told Health-e News. Service providers will be expected to deliver on the day that sanitary towels are to handed out to learners to avoid keeping pads in schools. “Only a box or so for emergency can be kept at school.
A register will be marked and signed as the girls the receive pads from their Life Orientation teacher and the principal and supplier’s signature will also be required,” said Matshoba.
Provinces will be responsible for the implementation of the programme and the department will provide support and capacity building to each province, depending on the different levels of readiness, she added. – Health-e News.
Image credit: iStock
NEXT ON HEALTH24X
NHS dentist charges rise by 5% in England
Dentists warn NHS services are heading for extinction in England as patient fees prop up the “underfunded system”.
Health24.com | Insomniac can go full two days without sleep
He sleeps on average 20 minutes a night and frequently goes without sleep for up to two days at a time. But don’t feel sorry for Neil Epstein (54).
He believes his insomniac condition is a blessing as it’s allowed him to live a second life.
“I’d say on average I get about 10 hours sleep a week and I can be awake for 36 hours,” the dad-of-four says.
“But that’s probably given me an extra two years of consciousness every decade. For this reason, my insomnia has actually been a positive thing in lots of ways — I’ve never looked at it as a negative.”
Neil first started experiencing sleeplessness when he was just six years old but wasn’t formally diagnosed with insomnia until he was 12.
“My mother noticed it when I was about six years old. She thought it was just a phase I was just going through,” he remembers.
“Growing up wasn’t easy. There wasn’t lot a of support for insomnia. I was very short tempered and there were times I’d bang my head against the wall to try and knock myself out.”
Neil used to be embarrassed about his condition and it took him months to tell his wife, Julia (52), after they tied the knot.
But he quickly saw the benefit of never getting tired.
When the couple’s kids — Ben (24), Charlotte (23), Sophie (16) and James (13) — were born Neil would regularly take the “night shift” while Julia enjoyed a full night’s rest.
But his unusual condition has more benefits than just being Superdad.
“I’m always there for people when they need to call me at 3am. And it’s allowed me to write my own poetry and music.
“So if anyone ever says to me, ‘Oh dear, how sad’, I say no, it’s an advantage and it’s been a blessing.”
Read more: Sleepless nights? Insomnia may be in your genes
Neil has tried various therapies and treatments for his insomnia, including acupuncture, yoga and cognitive behavioural therapy. Doctors even tried to reset his body clock using medication, but nothing worked.
He now occasionally self-medicates with a low dose of sleeping pills, which gives him an extra hour of sleep a day.
But he says if he never slept properly again he’d be perfectly happy as he’s given up on finding a cure for the condition.
And he believes apart from feeling tired from time to time, he suffers no adverse health effects because of his insomnia.
“I’m just carrying on. This is my life and the way I exist and I’ve always got a smile on my face.”
Image credit: Supplied
